St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman — who has broadly hinted that he'll seek a third term but hasn't yet pulled the trigger on an official announcement — just lost the only challenger to step up so far.
Roger Meyer said today that he's out.
Meyer, a "transition consultant" who's worked with many local organizations in interim positions, had announced his mayoral run in December. He said he was running because:
National and state politics are broken, leaving it up to people willing to act locally to make real change. Too often city leaders have waited for fixes to come down from the Legislature and that isn’t working.
But today he said in a statement:
Since launching the campaign, the level of excitement our issues and the challenge to the status quo have generated has exceeded my expectations. In order to run the type of grassroots campaign needed to push these issues and to win, I would need to be campaigning non-stop from now through Election Day. After much consideration I’ve come to realize that at this time in my life, for both family and professional reasons, I cannot dedicate the time to be the candidate to lead this effort.
I believe strongly in adding more voices and more choices to this year’s campaign, and will be working with members of the Green Party and others to identify and encourage other candidates to run and continue to push these issues in to the campaign. By making the decision to get out of the race early, I’m hopeful that other candidates will emerge with the time and capacity to be successful.